Need for Healing

I’ve got tired of hearing this statement, since today morning I must haveheard this at least four times. Now I know you must be feeling I’m aboutto drop a rant, but bear with me. See this two syllable word “OK” oughtto be dropped from our vocabularies because we’re not OK/okay.

The harsh truth is that most of the time when we say we’re fine or we’reok we’re lying to ourselves and those around us. And we lie becausethere’s something that’s not right with our lives, something that preventsus from being in harmony.

Now I’m sure those of us who are proud of their “ok” status will arguethat their lives are just normal, professionally they’re doing well, theirmarriages are just like any other normal marriage.

To these people, I ask do you have a sense of satisfaction. Do you wakeup with zest, knowing your life is going to be fulfilling?

You see if you are honest with yourself you will come to the conclusionthat we as a community have grown increasingly materialistic. We arecaught up in an endless cycle of consumerism.

Throughout our lives, we have been conditioned to accept that these materialistic goods, be it a burger or toothpaste, will make us happy. The result is we have strived to acquire wealth so we can afford these products that promise us happiness.

But apart from being great advertisements, these are empty promises.We chase after the lifestyle these products claim to offer us. We work andexhaust ourselves, sacrifice our health, take on unnecessary stress, andremain unsatisfied.

After all of this, why do we still feel our lives are empty? Why do we facedepression? What’s the use of bright white teeth if you can’t genuinelysmile!

Forget about smiling, this stress and depression deprive us of our sleep,we are plagued by migraines, our physical bodies begin to deterioratewith lifestyle diseases. Our postures get bent out of shape, joints stiffenwe age much before our time. And yet we say, “I’m ok.”

The problem is we’re not open to healing because we live in denial, wecannot accept that we’re sick and we need help. Worse still we havebegun to accept our lies, and we believe that all these problems that weface are natural. We accept them as normal, often you will hear phraseslike, “that’s life deal with it.”

The problem is we don’t deal with it. Some of us accept we haveproblems, but are too afraid to make a positive change. They are afraid ofchange, some are afraid of failure. We refuse to acknowledge our abilityto heal ourselves. We become cynical, and refuse to believe even whenwe are shown the right part. This is because we live in fear.

So, how can we begin to heal ourselves?

The first step is always Acceptance. Before we can go any further wemust accept our flaws and shortcomings. We must learn to loveourselves for who we are and not who we want to be. We must acceptthese difficulties in our lives and the need for healing.

Rather than fighting against them, we must target the source of theproblem, instead of the symptom.

If you have a headache and take an over the counter pain killer that’s

treating the symptom, treating the cause would be taking off the

load of bricks we carry on our head.

That was just an example, more often the load brick we carry aresuppressed emotions. We are made to believe that showing our emotionsis a sign of weakness. Naturally we suppress them, but these suppressedemotions can manifest themselves as all sorts of physical ailments.

We must learn to let go, rid our minds and bodies of all the mental andphysical stress so that we can begin to heal ourselves. For before you caninhale the life-giving oxygen, first you must exhale.

When we have learned to let go, we can begin to fill their void withsomething more wholesome. True healing is when our entire liveschange, we begin to accept a new way of living. This includes a change indiet and a lifestyle.

To be healthy we must live healthy, we have to respect our body and notpollute it with toxins, and we must nourish it and strengthen it withexercise. Our minds too need to seek a sense of balance throughmeditation.